News In Brief

State and local officials in Pennsylvania have agreed to make major
changes in the way the state funds programs for abused and neglected
children and juvenile delinquents.

The court-approved agreement, announced May 7, settled a lawsuit
brought by 67 counties against Gov. Robert P. Casey and a host of other
state officials.

Local leaders, faced with skyrocketing costs and growing numbers of
maltreated children, sought in the suit to force the state to provide
additional child-welfare funding.

Although the state is legally required to pay an average of 75
percent of the cost of those programs, in recent years it has paid only
about half, according to the suit.

The counties blamed the state's funding system, which they said
failed to take into account the actual need for services.

Under the new agreement, funding for those programs will be tied
more closely to demand as reported by counties.

The agreement also calls for the state to help pay, on a graduated
basis over several years, the amount of reimbursable costs incurred by
counties in 1991 that exceeded their state allocation for that
year.

State officials promised to seek an additional $10 million for
child-welfare programs over the amount Mr. Casey recommended in his
budget plan 3.

The Michigan Senate is considering legislation to impose financial
penalties on parents--middle- and upper-income taxpayers as well as
welfare recipients--whose children drop out or are truant from
school.

The proposal is similar to Wisconsin's "Learnfare" program,
which4cuts welfare benefits for families whose teenage children do not
attend school regularly.

But Michigan's program, sponsored by Senators Dan L. DeGrow and John
J.H. Schwarz, would also prohibit the parents of dropouts and truants
from claiming their children as deductions on their state income-tax
forms. "We felt this made the program less discriminatory against
lower-income families," an aide to Mr. DeGrow said.

The Michigan proposal would cover all school-age children.

The Senate education committee was expected to approve the proposal,
which is contained in a package of three bills, late last week.

The Illinois House has overwhelmingly rejected legislation banning
corporal punishment in the schools.

The bill, sponsored by Representative Lee Preston of Chicago, was
defeated on an 84-to-17 vote.

Critics of the measure argued that decisions on school-discipline
policies should be made at the district level, rather than by the
state.

Gov. James J. Blanchard of Michigan has released a school-finance
proposal calling for the state to increase its share of education
funding to 50 percent.

The "50-50 Education Partnership" plan, issued this month, also
would amend the constitution to ensure that all profits from the state
lottery be reserved for education.

In return for the promise of additional state funding, Mr. Blanchard
said, the plan would require districts to guarantee that students
receive the skills necessary for employment.

The plan also restates Mr. Blanchard's call in his
State-of-the-State Address to limit increases in property-tax
assessments for the schools to no more than the inflation rate.

Gov. Gaston Caperton of West Virginia has appointed a task force to
develop long-term goals for the legislature's upcoming special session
on education.

The 20-member committee includes six lawmakers, the presidents of
the state's two teachers' unions, and several other educators. Mr.
Caperton said the group will study a wide range of issues, from
preschool education to adult literacy.

According to the Governor's spokesman, the commission will present a
list of goals to state leaders at a June education summit.

As part of an agreement ending a 12-day statewide teachers' strike
in March, legislative leaders promised to ask Mr. Caperton to convene a
special session to consider a comprehensive funding plan for education.
Mr. Caperton has said he will call the session by the end of
August.

Massachusetts' Employment and Training program has not been effective
in moving welfare recipients into jobs, a new study concludes.

The program provides basic education and job training, day care, and
other services aimed at enabling recipients to become
self-sufficient.

The study argues that many of the 67,000 program participants who
found jobs between 1984 and 1989 would have done so even without the
program's assistance. Given its costs--a total of $324 million in state
and federal funds over the period--the program thus has failed to
deliver the substantial savings to the taxpayers claimed by program
adherents, the study maintains.

The study calls for several changes, including making the program
mandatory rather than voluntary, shifting to less-costly informal day
care, and aiding all welfare recipients rather than just those most
likely to find relatively high-paying jobs.

"Work and Welfare in Massachusetts" was written by June O'Neill, a
professor of economics at Baruch College, City University of New York,
and published by the Boston-based Pioneer Institute for Public Policy
Research.

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